1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to telecommunications and, in particular, to voice identification. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to initiating authentication of the identity of a callee at an origin device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone service has created communication channels worldwide, and those channels continue to expand with the advent of cellular and other wireless services. A person can simply take a telephone off-hook and dial a destination number or press a send button and be connected to a telephone line around the world.
Today, the public switching telephone network (PSTN), wireless networks, and private networks telephone services are based on the identification of the wireless telephone or wireline that a calling party uses. Services are personalized according to wireless telephone or wireline telephone number, where service associated with one telephone number are not accessible for another telephone number assigned to the same subscriber. For example, there is typically a first set of service features and billing options assigned to a home line number, a second set of service features and billing options assigned to an office line number, and a third set of service features and billing options assigned to a cellular telephone number. The networks process calls to and from each of these different subscriber telephones based on a separate telephone number.
One of the services provided by many networks is caller identification. However, caller identification (caller ID) is limited to identification the wireline or wireless telephone number and the name of the subscriber of a service. Where multiple people share a single line, only the name of the person who establishes a service is displayed as the caller ID, often causing confusion about who is actually calling.
Caller ID is further limited in that it only flows from the calling party subscriber line to the called party. Multiple people may have access to a telephone device receiving a call, such that the calling party does not know now exactly who will answer a call. According to current caller ID systems, even if the caller ID where to flow back to the calling party, that caller ID would only indicate the name of the line subscriber to a phone number called by the calling party, and not the identity of the person answering the call.
In particular, while wireline telephone plans often bill a line subscriber at flat rate per month, wireless telephone plans often bill a line subscriber according to the minutes utilized per month. Where a wireless telephone is utilized to call a number that may be answered by multiple people, the wireless telephone caller must wait to see who answers, and thus be billed for the minutes, even if the person who the caller wants to speak with is not the person who answers.
Therefore, in view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for providing an identification of the person answering a call to the calling party. In addition, it would be advantageous to provide a method, system, and program for providing an identification of the person answering a call to the calling party, such that the calling party may decide whether to speak to the person answering the call.